


Once Upon A Time

by zetsuboufetish



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Gen, spoilers for the whole game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsuboufetish/pseuds/zetsuboufetish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, her name was Ikusaba Mukuro.</p><p>Once upon a time, she was alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon A Time

**Author's Note:**

> i just have a lot of feelings about mukuro and i love her dont look at me

Once upon a time, her name was Ikusaba Mukuro.

Once upon a time, she was alive.

She had a sister, Enoshima Junko. They were almost exact twins from birth, mirror images until they became older. Each found their own appearance; one a model and one a shadow. For years, they would not resemble each other the way they did when they were small, neither physically nor mentally.

Yet still they were close. Mukuro trusted Junko, trusted her with all her heart, and would do anything for her. The budding model was Mukuro's whole world. Junko was intelligent, resourceful, beautiful, but still somehow delicate and tender in Mukuro's eyes. She wanted to protect her, needed to protect her from the damage she could possibly sustain.

So she became stronger. She trained and struggled and strengthened her body while she waited for an opportunity to run away, run away to the secret organization, Fenrir, that she'd managed to catch a hint of. She skipped out on a family vacation, disappearing into the night like she was never even there. Mukuro was missing for a long time.

When she returned, she was even stronger. She had fought in wars, dodged bullets and grenades, became the Super High School Level Soldier she was destined to be. Now she could more easily protect her sister, her best friend and the center of her whole world. Even a cursory glance at her twin made it obvious that, though she had indeed become more beautiful than anyone she could think of, Junko was still portrayed in her mind as delicate, as borderline fragile.

But Junko had changed in ways other than beauty. Long ago, she hid her passion for despair, saved her talks of a dead world and loss, of betrayal, for the long dark nights the twins spent huddled under their covers in their shared bed. Now she spoke of terrible despair so openly, without fear of judgement, with laughter and a bright smile that made Mukuro's heart sing. She laughed when she told Mukuro that their parents had died. She laughed when much of their remaining family went the same way.

Mukuro never laughed. Her twin laughed enough for both of them; there was no room in the world for both Junko's loud laughs and sunny smiles and Mukuro's own low chuckles and tense smirks. Junko could light the world up with her pure, unadulterated happiness, just by speaking of the dead world she wanted, by speaking of the flame of hope that she wanted to blow out.

A soldier until the very end, Mukuro would follow her sister anywhere, follow her orders to a 'T'. And so, when they both were accepted to Hope's Peak Academy, she would go only if Junko agreed. And agree she did, even as Mukuro watched her cute, freckle-less nose crinkle at the name of the school, printed in gold type on their acceptance letters.

They arrived separately, but yet together, in different cars. Mukuro watched her twin's back as she sashayed into the school, already commandeering the attention of the whole room and leaving nothing but shadows for her. She didn't mind. She preferred watching her sister, alert for any danger posed to the sunshine of her life, ready always to defend Junko to the death. She was the bodyguard to her sister's starlet... and eventually became the brawn to complement her sister's brains.

Exactly a week after their arrival, Junko appeared at her door, which was not too unusual in itself. Junko often visited her sister, knowing that she had few friends, and even fewer attempts to make them. However, something was indeed amiss. Junko's smile was too large, too full of teeth, and it made her look like a wolf eyeing a sheep. It piqued Mukuro's curiousity, and of course she let her in. That was the night that Junko imparted on her the plan to wreak despair all throughout the Academy of Hope, the plan she'd cultivated close to her chest since she had been accepted, since she'd been informed through Super High School Level Despair about their plans for the world. Without hardly a thought, Mukuro agreed; anything to keep Junko happy, and she knew this would make her downright ecstatic.

They waited for the longest time. Two years, in fact. Two long, horrible years, in which Mukuro began to grow close to her classmates, began to rethink her involvement in Junko's plan. She rethought it as she played a resigned game of catch with a baseball-starved Kuwata-kun. She rethought it as she trained and sparred with Oogami-san, as she ate in silence during break with Kirigiri-san.

The looming plan consumed her, chewed her insides up and haunted her brain for hours on end. She thought about it during the day, when it forced her to stop classwork and look around at her classmates, now more than just strangers, and already slated to die at Junko's-- no, at _their_ hands. It made her lie awake at night, wondering if she'd miss them once they were dead and gone, gone to a place so far away that she could not ever see them again in life. Unable to fool herself (she was no Celes, after all,) she was forced to admit she would. She would miss Oogami-san's calm presence, the way their spars were loaded and heavy, but off the gym floor, there was no animosity between them. She would miss Mondo-san and Fujisaki-san's laughter echoing in the hallways, she'd miss Ishimaru-san scolding them for being much too loud.

But most of all, she would miss Kuwata Leon-kun, the wannabe rockstar who had charmed his way into her life, as her dearest friend besides her twin sister.

The two years passed slowly, like a snail's journey. The morning the plan was to be put into action, after the students had all agreed to be locked away in the school until after the worst, despair-inducing event that the Super High School Level Despair had told Junko about passed, Junko herself arrived at Mukuro's door, laden with packages and grinning from ear-to-ear. The fashion model was so excited, so giddy over her brilliant master plan, that Mukuro could only grow excited with her, dispelling any apprehension she felt towards the idea of her classmates, her friends, dying. Junko dragged Mukuro back into her room, which was barren save a small collection of unloaded guns, and sat her on the bed. Some time later, not more than half an hour, Mukuro distantly felt her twin running her hands through the fake blonde pigtails of the wig secured tightly to her head. Junko had made her face up like a china doll's, like her own, leaving a porcelain beauty staring back at her from the mirror in the bathroom. The freckles dotting her nose were still prominent, unable to be tamed and covered by any form of cream of powder that Junko attacked them with. Junko really didn't seem to mind them too much, so Mukuro didn't either.

She dressed in Junko's clothes, which were encased in one of the packages, and stayed behind in her room as Junko left, just as she'd told her. She perfected her Junko act while the real thing was gone, perfecting the role she'd been training herself to play for two years. As soon as she stepped out of the classroom Junko had assigned her, she would no longer be Ikusaba Mukuro. She would become Enoshima Junko. When her twin returned, Mukuro did not think to question how Junko erased their memories. She merely did as she was told, helping her sister relocate the students' bodies into their designated classrooms. Then she went into her own to wait.

What seemed like an eternity later, she emerged, cocky and cool and everything she was not on the inside, a replica of how she viewed her sister. She was never one for introductions, as they made her nervous, but she went through with it, although Naegi-san's comment about not presenting the way he thought she would... It made her nervous and she had to rely on the photoshop excuse that Junko had drilled into her head to say if someone asked about her appearance. She admittedly panicked a little internally.

Once that hurdle was jumped and introductions were over, she fit smoothly and seamlessly into the role she and Junko had designed just for her. She went through the motions, found it hard to refer to her classmates of two years as if they'd never met before. She found it even harder to treat Kuwata-kun so distantly, when once they'd been so close.

But she made it through. She played her part, dancing on the puppet strings that Junko controlled from up above. As the time drew near for her main performance, her “attack” on Monobear in the gym, one of the many in the school, she began to grow nervous again. Mukuro didn't want to mess this up, not for her dearest sister, the girl she'd given up her life and her friends for. So, when the time came, she excelled at her actions, performing beautifully and landing on the exact mark that Junko had stressed to her so repeatedly that she - must - hit.

Her reflexes never had a chance to kick in. The spikes were just too fast, just too many. They pierced her body forcefully, painfully, and punctured everything in their paths. Her eyes managed to move, found her closest friend. Kuwata-san looked on in horror, but not the grief she had almost, almost expected. No, he didn't know her. Not anymore. But she kept him in her vision until she died, amidst shouts of concern and abject horror.

Her name was Ikusaba Mukuro, and she died friendless, betrayed by the very sister she'd treasured more than anything, whom she'd spent her life protecting and caring for.

Her name was Ikusaba Mukuro, and she never had a chance to live for herself.


End file.
